THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL
Baroness Orczy
The novel is set during the Reign of Terror following the start of the French Revolution. The title is the nom de guerre of its hero and protagonist, a chivalrous Englishman who rescues aristocrats before they are sent to the guillotine. Sir Percy Blakeney leads a double life: apparently nothing more than a wealthy fop, but in reality, a formidable swordsman and a quick-thinking master of disguise and escape artist. The band of gentlemen who assist him are the only ones who know of his secret identity. He is known by his symbol, a simple flower, the scarlet pimpernel.
Opening at the New Theatre in London's West End on January 5,1905, the play became a favourite of British audiences, eventually playing more than 2,000 performances and becoming one of the most popular shows staged in London. Published after the success of the play, the novel was an immediate success, gaining Orczy a following of readers in Britain and the rest of the world. The stage play and subsequent novel, with their hero and villain, were so popular that they inspired a revival of classic villainy at the time.
Orczy's premise of a daring hero who cultivates a secret identity disguised by a meek or ineffectual manner proved enduring. Read by Stan Lee as a boy, the Marvel co-creator called The Scarlet Pimpernel "the first character who could be called a superhero."
Baroness Emma Orczy, aka Emma Magdalena Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála Orczy de Orci, usually known as Baroness Orczy, the name under which she was published or to her family and friends as Emmuska Orczy, was a Hungarian-born British novelist and playwright.
Emma's parents left their estate for Budapest in 1868, fearful of the threat of a peasant revolution. They lived in Budapest, Brussels, and Paris. Finally, in 1880, the 14-year-old Emma and her family moved to London, England.
They had very little money. and Orczy started to work with her husband as a translator and an illustrator to supplement his meager earnings.
In 1903, she and her husband wrote The Scarlet Pimpernel, a play based on one of her short stories about an English aristocrat, Sir Percy Blakeney, who rescued French aristocrats from the French Revolution. She had conceived the character while standing on a platform on the London Underground.
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